THE abrupt ending last year of the reciprocal health agreement between Jersey and the UK came as an unpleasant shock, the ripples from which are still spreading.

Quite apart from the many practical problems it created for Islanders and their families, the UK’s unilateral decision served to illustrate an unwelcome rift in what most people on this side of the water had come to view as a close and cordial relationship.

It is no doubt true that Jersey has sometimes been guilty of taking this relationship and the benefits it brings for granted. It is also regrettable that the financial imbalance at the heart of it, with the UK paying a disproportionate rate based on long-outdated visitor numbers, was allowed to continue to the point at which the party with the worst of the bargain simply decided that enough was enough.

None of those regrets should inhibit renewed efforts to negotiate an arrangement acceptable to both jurisdictions. The proposition lodged last week by Senator Alan Breckon, calling for a States vote to charge Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur with reinstating the health agreement, is a positive move which will surely receive unanimous support. The scrapping of the agreement and the consequent need to take out private health insurance have caused real problems. In some cases, elderly parents and grandparents have been unable to visit their families in one place or the other.

As chairman of both the Consumer Council and the States Scrutiny panel responsible for health and social security matters, Senator Breckon is doubly well placed to begin the process of reconciliation. He is right, too, to seek to make this a responsibility of the
Island’s Chief Minister, rather than of the Health Minister, who has already promised that the discussions will be reopened. The wider issues raised about the relationship
between the UK, Jersey and the other Crown Dependencies are clearly of an importance that merits such high-level attention.

In fact, with the right constructive approach to the right people, this problem might yet be turned into an opportunity to promote a fuller understanding of Jersey’s constitutional position, review the mixture of rights and responsibilities it creates and establish a greater degree of mutual respect than clearly existed at the end of the old agreement. As well as flying the flag for Jersey in London, Senator Le Sueur should invite the relevant UK politicians and officials to Jersey to see at first hand what the Island is all about and where it fits within the Crown influence’s wider bounds.

His basis for doing so has been immeasureably strengthened by the recent publication of the report by a House of Commons cross-party Justice Committee, affirming the status of the Crown Dependencies and criticising the way in which the reciprocal health agreement was curtailed by officials acting as if they thought they were dealing with a UK council.

With a willingness on both sides to forgive, forget and start again, the stage is set for a
renewed understanding between two distinct, but closely inter-related, jurisdictions.